If you’d like to contact a specific faculty member, you’ll find the most up-to-date information in the ACC Directory.

Wayne Butler, Ph.D., Department Chair

Wayne Butler earned his Ph.D. in English Education, with an emphasis on rhetoric and technology, from U.T Austin. Has taught academic writing, computers and writing, and technical communications at The University of Texas, The University of Michigan, and Texas Tech University. At the University of Michigan, Butler served as Associate Director of Curriculum and Instruction and then Director of the English Composition Board. He co-authored Writing the Information Superhighway (Allyn and Bacon, 1997) with William Condon. He served as a founding member, corporate manager, chief operations officer and then CEO of The Daedalus Group, Inc., an educational software firm that pioneered the use of LAN and Internet technologies to support collaborative learning and the writing process. Before becoming ACC faculty full-time, Butler was an ACC adjunct professor while serving administrative roles at The University of Texas at Austin Continuing Education, where he served as Lead Instructional Designer, College Curriculum supervisor, Associate Director for Academic Programs, then as Director of Innovation, Research, and Strategic Planning. At ACC, Butler serves on the advisory board of the ACC Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning and a Faculty Coordinator for ACC’s Liberal Arts Area of Study.

Natalie Bidnick Andreas

Natalie Bidnick Andreas is a strategic communications professional with a decade of digital strategy, content creation, public relations, online marketing, client management and supervisory experience. She has worked with more than 200 brands on improving and
extending their online presence. Andreas’s expertise has been featured on Bloomberg, Fast Company, PR Daily, and AOL, among others. She holds a B.A. in Corporate Communications and Public Affairs from Southern Methodist University as well as a Master’s degree with an emphasis in creative writing from St. Edward’s University.

Jacqueline Childress, J.D.

Jacqueline Childress received her B.A. with Honors from the University of Texas at Austin. She later received her J.D. from Chicago-Kent College of Law with a certificate in International and Comparative Law. This was followed by a Certificate in Mediation from the University of Texas School of Law. Thereafter, she received her Certification in Family Law Mediation from the Dispute Resolution Center here in Austin. She has acted as a Mediation Coach with the University of Texas School of Law Center for Public Policy Dispute Resolution. She has mediated numerous consumer and family cases in Spanish and English.

Ana Mejia-Deitche, J.D.

Ana graduated from Yale College with a degree in English Language and Literature and later earned her law degree at the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. Ana is licensed to practice law by the State Bar of Texas (Active Status), Maryland State Bar (Inactive Status) and District of Columbia Bar (Inactive Status). Ana’s experience spans employment as an attorney for the National Institutes of Health and over six years as a program attorney with the State Bar of Texas’ Professional Development Program. She enjoyed community outreach roles for various employers including the National Treasury Employee’s Union and Congressman Lloyd Doggett. Most of her work involved some level of interaction with state and federal agencies.

Ana left Austin Community College’s grant development department to serve as the Director of the Health Industry Steering Committee at the Skillpoint Alliance. Her volunteer work includes service on the boards of the Women’s Advocacy Project, Lone Star Girl Scout Council and Austin Free-Net.

Michael Finney

Michael Finney’s experience in technical communications includes 5 years at the American Botanical Council as managing editor of HerbalGram and 7 years at the Los Alamos National Laboratory as managing editor of BITS. Michael has edited hundreds of articles for publication while collaborating with engineers, executives, and researchers in fields such as computer science and botanical research. As an experienced managing editor, Michael has worked extensively with designers, illustrators, and photographers to promote best practices in document design. While earning an M.A. in English, he taught composition and technical writing courses at Oklahoma State University.

Kristi Gedeon

Kristi Gedeon received her MFA degree from Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont. She teaches English Composition I and II, British Literature I and II, and Technical Writing at Austin Community College. She has also taught Creative Writing at the Fredericksburg Education Center. Kristi works as a fiction writer, a freelance writer, and a mentor for students struggling with school-related assignments. Having published numerous short stories in literary magazines around the world, Kristi has been writing for over ten years. She has won short story contests and received awards for her work. Kristi teaches Technical Writing at the new Hill Country University campus in Fredericksburg, Texas.

Kathie Goldsmith

Kathie Goldsmith graduated from the University of Texas in Austin with a BA in Geography and Natural Resources Management and a Master of Applied Geography in Environmental Science Management from Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas (now Texas State University). After spending 10 years in technical writing, she returned to Austin Community College to her an AAS in Technical Writing: Social Media.

In her career, she has worked as a wildlife biologist, a project manager of government projects, and a writer and editor for public and private entities in the fields of the environment, transportation, energy, and flood control projects.

She has written documents for government agencies such as the Federal Highways Administration, Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services, Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, Texas Department of Transportation, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the U.S. Veterans Administration.

In 2007, she started her own business as a technical writer of research papers that specialize in satisfying required governmental mandates for the creation of HUD-funded residential developments and Medicaid-sponsored nursing homes.

Kathie is an amateur musician, backyard farmer, and Girl Scout leader who enjoys cooking, animal husbandry, beekeeping, and learning new crafts. She enjoys writing about these things in her blog.

Travis Mann

Travis Mann received his Master’s Degree in Rhetoric and Composition from Texas Christian University in 2006. He has more than 20 years of experience writing fundraising proposals for higher education and nonprofits as well as extensive experience working with technical communications and marketing projects for the medical and pharmaceutical industries. Travis’ teaching experience covers almost 10 years, with a full time position at Texas Christian University, and positions at Tarrant County College and Austin Community College.

Debi Martin, B.J., M.A.

Like many of her students, Debi returned to school periodically throughout her career to update and upgrade credentials. Formerly a rock ‘n’ roll writer, dance critic and feature staff writer for the Austin American-Statesman, she is the veteran of many wonderful, now-defunct publications including McCall’s magazine (in business for over 100 years until its demise at the turn of the last century) and Civilization (for the Library of Congress). She transitioned to digital media in 2008 as a paid blogger, web site content provider, and a social media ghostwriter for Austin-based businesses. She discovered her love and talent for teaching writing in 1992 when ACC hired her to teach basic writing skills courses at its then-East Austin campus. She completed a second graduate degree at age 50+ in December 2013, a Master of Arts in Rhetoric and Composition from Texas State University, where she specialized in digital/new media, tech writing and computers and composition. For more information about her teaching philosophy see her website: www.debimartin.com.

Theresa Mooney, Ph.D.

After securing a doctoral degree in Modern Literature from Tulane University, Theresa Mooney has worked in educational and industrial settings for more than twenty-five years. During one decade, she routinely juggled teaching and administrative roles while serving as Loyola University New Orleans’ s Assistant Director of Writing Across the Curriculum and teaching Business Communication, Management Communication, English Composition, and Modern Literature at both Loyola and Tulane. During this time, she also drank lots of N’Awlins coffee. Joining ACC in January 2005, as Learning Labs Manager at the EVC campus, she has also taught part-time with Communications since fall 2006. Both her juggling experience and her coffee capacity now serve her well in her dual roles with ACC.

Vickey Morrow

Vickey Morrow holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in English from the University of Texas at San Antonio. She also holds an associate’s degree in business management from Austin Community College. Vickey has worked in the technical writing industry for over 20 years, and is currently a lead information developer at a software company in Austin. She has worked with SGML and XML for over a decade, with a focus on information architecture, design, and modeling. She has created online help and user guides for a wide range of software applications, including scientific research software, insurance applications, mainframe products, and database utilities.

Mindy Reed, MLIS, MA

Mindy Reed holds a Master of Library and Information Science degree from the University of Texas at Austin, a Master of Liberal Arts degree in Humanities from Southern Methodist University, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Business from Kansas State University. She is a managing librarian and bookstore manager for Austin Public Library’s Recycled Reads. She is the founder and Editor-in-chief of The Authors’ Assistant, a publishing boutique with over 20 years experience in services for traditionally and independently published authors (both print and digital). She had been an adjunct instructor at ACC for seven years and she also sings alto with the Austin Community College Choir.

David Pruett, Ph.D.

Technical writer and editor for an engineering company for several years before grad school. While earning an M.A. and a Ph.D., he taught freshman composition and technical writing courses at Texas A&M for 10 years. With C. Jan Swearingen, he co-authored “Language Diversity and the Classroom: Problems and Prospects, a Bibliography” (in Language Diversity in the Classroom: From Intention to Practice, ed. Geneva Smitherman and Victor Villanueva, 2003) and co-edited Rhetoric, the Polis, and the Global Village: Selected Papers from the 1998 Thirtieth Anniversary Rhetoric Society of America Conference(1999). He has also published reviews in several journals. His degrees are in English, with extensive coursework in rhetoric and linguistics.

Kathleen Shapley, Ph.D., J.D.

Kathleen Shapley earned her Ph.D. in English from UT Austin. She has taught academic writing at UT Austin and St. Edward’s University. Kathleen also holds a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, and worked in New York City for several years at both a large law firm and a small nonprofit organization.

Mark Steinbach, J.D.

Mark Steinbach is an attorney in the Austin area. He practices mainly in administrative and environmental law. Before becoming an attorney, Mark taught English composition courses at Cy-Fair College in Cypress, Texas. Mark received a B.A. from Texas A&M University, an M.A. from Purdue University, and J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center.

Allison Teegardin, M.A., J.D.

Allison Teegardin has been writing for businesses for more than thirteen years! An accomplished corporate communicator and publications editor, Allison brings her experience and enthusiasm for a great marketing story to the online classroom in the three courses she teaches at ACC. In addition to her position as an Adjunct Professor, Allison is a social media consultant and freelance writer assisting various businesses with their digital marketing needs. She holds a B.S. from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo; an M.A. from California State University Long Beach; a J.D. from Ventura College of Law, and an A.A. in Business & Technical Communications from Austin Community College.

Allison Trahan, M.A.

Allison Trahan earned an MA in English from the University of Texas, Austin and a BA in German and Psychology from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Allison has worked as a freelance technical writer for Emerson, Inc. and as a corporate trainer for Samsung Electronics. She holds an ESL certification from the Royal Society of Arts, Cambridge, England and put it to good use, teaching abroad for six years. She received a Fulbright stipend to teach English at the largest technical college in Europe (HTL Moedling, Austria) and taught English on the Japanese Exchange and Teaching Program (Gero-cho, Japan).

Allyson Whipple, M.A.

Allyson Whipple is an MFA candidate in creative writing at the University of Texas at El Paso. She also holds an MA in English from Case Western Reserve University and a BA in English from Kenyon College. She is the author of two chapbooks: Come Into the World Like That (Five Oaks Press, 2016) and We’re Smaller Than We Think We Are (Finishing Line Press, 2013). She has been teaching since 2005.